


They Deserve Better

by afteriwake



Series: In So Few Words [176]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coffee, Comfort, Conversations, Couch Cuddles, F/M, Gentle Kissing, Guilty John Watson, Hopeful Molly Hooper, Injured Mary Morstan, Lazy Mornings, Light Angst, Mary Lives, Minor Mary Morstan/John Watson, Morning After, Morning Cuddles, Morning Kisses, Other People's Relationships, POV Molly Hooper, Post-Episode AU: s04e01 The Six Thatchers, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart, Worried Sherlock, early morning conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Sherlock and Molly talk about John and Mary the morning after their own relationship takes a turn.





	They Deserve Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts), [Juldooz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juldooz/gifts).



> **Dreamin** has been amazing in giving me a ton of prompts that aren't for specific ships so I could use the for fic that I owe people whose prompts I have lost due to laptop problems, and I decided to offer up a few of them today. **Juldooz** gave me the ship and I used the sentence prompt that starts this fic. I kind of want to write more in this AU, since it leaves open revised episode AUs for "The Lying Detective" and "The Final Problem" but I have so much on my plate this may just be a one-shot. Not sure.

“They deserve better.”

Molly nodded, cradling the mug of coffee in her hands. She had not been at the aquarium when everything had happened, but all she knew was that Mary was severely injured, John was both parts riddled with guilt for text messages he sent and angry at Sherlock for Mary getting shot in the first place, and he was also mad at Greg for smacking him in the back of his head to take care of his damn wife and save her life.

She didn’t want to think of how things would be in Mary had not survived.

She imagined it would have been hell for them all. Perhaps Sherlock would have gone back to the habit he, so delicately said, he “dabbled” in and gone full hog into it, becoming a shell of a man. Perhaps John would have taken out his anger at Sherlock through physical violence. And no one may have pieced two and two together that the woman who John had flirted with was also the woman pretending to be his new therapist; Sherlock had intervened in with the texts and realized it.

Then the bombshell had been dropped: the woman was, in fact, his sister. She had swanned off into the crowd of people, leaving Sherlock grappling with a host of repressed memories coming to light, but it appeared their troubles were not over yet.

Still...there was time for some healing. Sherlock found out the truth of his past and realized Mycroft had been in a shite position from childhood, having been groomed by their uncle to inherit the secret of Eurus. Mary was regaining her health, and John...she wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with John. He had distanced himself from all of them.

There were cracks in the found family that they all had formed, yes, but some of the cracks were mending and that was good.

She curled into Sherlock on the sofa. They were...something. He had decided that time was too short, they could lose too much if they danced around their feelings for each other. She had the feeling Mary had had a hand in that, had told him to wise up or the next time Molly got engaged to another man she might actually go through with the marriage and...well, that had made him unhappy, and he had come to her home, let himself in and kissed her in the middle of her kitchen, telling her the three words she had longed to hear for so long.

He loved her. He really, honestly did.

Later he told her he would replace the casserole dish she had dropped when he kissed her, and she had laughed and went to see that Toby was alright and hadn’t filled up on the chicken a la king, but it had been much later. Much later after snogging and shagging and a shower and she felt lighthearted and happy for the first time, indeed, in so long.

And now it was the morning after and Sherlock was in pyjama bottoms he kept in her bottom drawer and she was in her kitten pyjamas and she had the feeling this, this sitting on the sofa and enjoying each other’s company, would be a new constant in her mornings on her days off.

But the topic of conversation, of how they could fix John and Mary’s relationship, she hoped wouldn’t be a regular topic. To be honest, she wasn’t sure it could be fixed; she’d seen an ugly side of John and so had the others and the fact he was distancing himself from his injured wife to take care of himself…

“They do,” she said finally, taking a sip of her coffee. “But they may not get it, you know. This is a wound that may never heal.”

Sherlock nodded, then hesitated just a moment before burying his nose in her hair and pressing a kiss there. “Promise me we’ll try and do better. I don’t...I don’t want to be selfish but I don’t want to lose you, either.”

“I think we’ll be fine, whatever happens,” she said, taking a hand off of her mug and squeezing his thigh. She certainly hoped they would. They deserved better, too, after all.


End file.
